YouTube Yanks Free Tibet Video After IOC Pressure

RevWaldo writes "The International Olympic Committee filed a copyright infringement claim yesterday against YouTube for hosting video of a Free Tibet protest at the Chinese Consulate in Manhattan Thursday night. The video depicts demonstrators conducting a candlelight vigil and projecting a protest video onto the consulate building; the projection features recent footage of Tibetan monks being arrested and riffs on the Olympic logo of the five interlocking rings, turning them into handcuffs. YouTube dutifully yanked the video, but it can still be seen on Vimeo. (Be advised; there is some brief footage of bloody, injured monks.)"

Comments

Re:The IOC cannot allow unofficial use of the ring

[mr_mischief]

These people aren't trying to identify anything else as the Olympics. They're trying to say the IOC is complicit with suppression and torture. The Olympic rings are being used to identify who they're supposed to identify, so there's no trademark issue.

Re:In response to your sig...

[asdir]

Not to justify what the Chinese government does and not to say that a new Tibetan government could be a democratic one adhering to human rights, but the previous leadership in Tibet indeed was more than just a tad theocratic and therefore not democratic at all. However, Wikipedia will tell you that it is debated how bad the caste system really was. Still, as I said, that is besides the point since it was before 1950. And as a German I'd like to say: I would not want to be judged by my country's history pre 1950 either. :-S

Protected Satire

[Nom du Keyboard]

Changing the Olympic logo into handcuffs, while certainly offensive to some, is clearly protected political satire akin to flag burning. YouTube should be ashamed, and the posters of the video should counter-file that their video is protected fair use.